Los Angeles mayoral candidate and City Council member Nithya Raman is still fending off fallout from an Oct. 13 debate comment in which she called the LAPD under former Chief Daryl Gates the “gold standard” for non-cooperation with immigration enforcement. Raman has since apologized multiple times, insisting she meant to praise a specific police policy rather than the chief himself, while her opponent in November's runoff, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, keeps hammering her over it.
What Raman Actually Said
During the debate, Raman said, “The city used to be the gold standard in terms of non-cooperation with immigration enforcement years ago during the era of Darryl Gates,” according to NBC Los Angeles. The station also reported that Raman referenced Special Order 40, which was passed under Mayor Tom Bradley and allowed people to make crime reports without fear of immigration enforcement. Raman has said she did not mean to praise Gates, telling reporters she was instead referring to Special Order 40.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Raman said she had used the phrase “gold standard” to describe Special Order 40, not the former chief, and that she called Gates “an abhorrent and racist police chief,” accusing Bass of deliberately distorting her statement. Gates served as Los Angeles police chief from 1978 to 1992 and resigned that year amid a groundswell of criticism over police abuse and his slow response to the riots that followed the acquittal of officers charged in the beating of Rodney King, per the same account.
Special Order 40's Origins
Special Order 40 was issued by Gates in 1979, according to the Los Angeles Times, and bars LAPD officers from initiating investigations solely to determine a person's immigration status. The Los Angeles Police Department says the policy exists so immigrant victims and witnesses can contact officers without fearing deportation or another penalty for reporting crimes. A separate 2024 sanctuary-city law, described by the Los Angeles City Council District 4 office, prohibits the use of city resources for immigration enforcement or cooperation with federal immigration agents.
Raman has repeated her apology beyond the debate stage. As reported by POLITICO, she privately apologized to a South Los Angeles community group for positively referencing Gates, saying, “I invoked his name, trying to make a point about LA's history of immigration enforcement and non-cooperation with federal immigration authorities, but I should not have done that.” She also apologized in a podcast appearance posted Tuesday afternoon, the outlet reported.
Bass Keeps Up the Pressure
Bass and her allies have hammered Raman for the debate comment, according to the same POLITICO account, which described the criticism as accusing her of being ignorant about a painful chapter in Los Angeles history. Separately, NBC Los Angeles reported that Raman apologized directly for talking about an issue she knows causes real pain to Angelenos, saying, “I apologize for, you know, talking about an issue that I know is one that causes real pain to Angelenos.”
Despite the clash over Gates, Raman and Bass have found at least one point of agreement: both have said they want the LAPD to stop working with license-plate-reader company Flock Safety, according to the Los Angeles Times. The dispute over the debate remark comes as the two prepare to face off in the November mayoral race, a matchup CNN had earlier projected between the incumbent and the city councilwoman.
As first reported by the New York Post, the controversy has kept Raman on the defensive in the closing weeks of the campaign. Whether the repeated apologies quiet the criticism before November remains to be seen.
